The complete and total lack of something is not necessarily "evidence." It can be strongly supporting information for a particular theory … but, in and of itself, something that isn’t there is very rarely substantive enough (physically or logically) to constitute established, factual evidence.

In a world of powerful magic, filled with divine creatures and gods, the lack of something merely indicates to me the possibility that a seriously angry god could very thoroughly "un-make" something to the point mere mortals could never detect it. Thus, legends: those rumors and gossip that echo through ages of history.

By the way, I’ve never thanked you for this magnificent comic. As a former RP gamer & recovering Dungeonmaster, I’ve been following this compulsively for some years now.

Thank you very much! I really look forward to this whenever you are able to update. 😎

Yes, well obviously he’s wrong, but he wasn’t basing his conclusion entirely on the fact that nobody could find the treasure, but that nobody could find anything left of an Empire that supposedly spanned the globe.
Anyway, yes he’s being unreasonable and I agree that you can’t prove anything with a negative. (The old "you can’t prove I’m wrong, therefore I’m right" BS) It’s clear that he’s got some emotional reaction to the whole Ancient Rannite Empire thing.

And thank you for reading! It’s nice to have a bit of time to actually do them again. However, it will be nicer for me to get back to actual professional work again soonish.